The musings of one Andrew Langer - defender of liberty, passionate protector of individual rights, foodie.
(Note: Said Musings of Andrew Langer are his own, and the views represented herein are likewise his views, and not the views of any other people, entities, foodstuffs, etc [unless otherwise specifically and explicitly noted].)

Thursday, July 21, 2005

What "Dedication to a Cause" REALLY Means!!!

If you've been reading my blog, you know how passionate I am about property rights (no, Andrew - really??!!). You know that I've been following the eminent domain abuse issue for several years now, and have written about the Supreme Court's recent decision in Kelo v. New London (see, "Dumb Supreme Court Decisions I Have Known"), and I've expressed my admiration for the attorneys for Mrs. Kelo in that case, the Institute for Justice.Well, IJ really knows how to fight for a client. Most of the time, the Supreme Court renders a decision, and the losing party is left to dust himself off, live with the decision, and move on.Not IJ. Having been termed (as I've mentioned) the "Merry Band of Litigators", their moniker suggests a certain dogged and earnest aggressiveness. IJ isn't taking this lying down. In addition to launching a full-scale nationwide campaign on this issue, IJ is taking one final step specifically on the Kelo case. I offer the following press release:INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE www.ij.orgFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JULY 18, 2005

Washington, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court has one final chance to correct one of its most-despised decisions in recent memory-its ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows the use of eminent domain for private development. Today the Institute for Justice will file a petition for rehearing on behalf of New London, Conn., homeowners asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 5-4 ruling from June 23 that has already opened up the floodgates to eminent domain abuse.

“We will be the first to admit that our chances of success with this motion are extremely small, but if there is any case that deserves to reheard by the Supreme Court, it is the Kelo case,” said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice. “This is the worst Supreme Court decision in years. Hopefully the Court will see the abuse of power that it has unleashed and will reconsider its misguided and dangerous opinion.”

Forget Hypotheticals: Floodgates are Opened With Ruling

As the petition points out as the first basis for the rehearing, the floodgates to eminent domain abuse have already begun to swing open. “Justice O’Connor predicted a world in which a Motel 6 can be taken for a Ritz-Carlton, and homes for a shopping mall,” said Dana Berliner, a senior attorney at the Institute and co-counsel in the Kelo case. “The majority wrongly dismissed these as hypotheticals when in fact such takings are already occurring throughout the country.”Among many other examples of lower-tax producing businesses being taken for higher-tax producing ones just since the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Institute for Justice cited:

· Hours after the Kelo decision, officials in Freeport, Texas, began legal filings to seize two family-owned seafood companies to make way for a more upscale business: an $8 million private boat marina.· Homes are already being taken for shopping malls. On July 12, 2005, Sunset Hills, Mo., voted to allow the condemnation of 85 homes and small businesses. This is the first step in allowing the private Novus Development Corp. to use eminent domain against the property owners to build a planned $165 million shopping center and office complex. Also in Missouri, the City of Arnold plans to take 30 homes and 15 small businesses, including the Arnold Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) post, for a Lowe’s and a strip mall.

The Poor & Middle Class Will Be Targets

The Institute for Justice pointed out to the Court that because property owners must pay their own litigation costs in eminent domain, many eminent domain abuse cases will never make it to court because property owners will simply be unable to afford the legal and other costs associated with challenging an eminent domain action on public use grounds.

For less wealthy individuals and businesses, the cost of litigation will very quickly exceed the value of the property, which is why nearly all appellate public use cases in the state courts involve challenges by larger business owners. Homeowner and small business cases, when they are brought at all, typically involve rare pro bono or public interest litigation. The Institute for Justice wrote in its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, “As a result, eminent domain for economic development purposes directed at poorer individuals, minorities and the politically powerless will rarely make it to the courts for evaluation on a case-by-case basis [as the Court suggested in its Kelo opinion] and those individuals and groups will in large part bear the brunt of these takings. Petitioners respectfully ask this Court to rehear this case so it may prohibit the use of eminent domain for private economic development or, at a minimum, provide greater protections to property owners.”

“Rarely does a Supreme Court decision generate such uniform and nearly universal outrage,” said Chip Mellor, president of Institute for Justice. “Clearly, Americans understand just how threatening the Court’s decision is for ordinary home and small business owners everywhere.”

Short of actually rehearing the entire case, the property owners ask the Court as the second basis for the rehearing to at the very least “vacate” the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme Court and allow more evidence to be submitted about the takings in this case. The Court announced new standards in the use of eminent domain for economic development in Kelo and four years have passed since the trial in the case. Petitioners ask the Supreme Court to allow for reexamination of facts in the trial court in light of the new standards it announced.

Hands Off My Home

In addition to asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rehear the Kelo case, less than one week after the decision, IJ and its Castle Coalition announced a $3 million “Hands Off My Home” campaign-an unprecedented financial commitment-to halting eminent domain for private profit. “Hands Off My Home” will focus the universal wave of opposition to the Kelo ruling to, among other actions, ask state courts to enforce the “public use” limitations found in every state constitution and to support citizen activists nationwide who are urging their state and local officials to set stricter standards for the use of eminent domain. Already, legislators in 25 states have introduced or promised to introduce legislation reforming the use of eminent domain for private development, but unless all 50 states enact such legislation, homeowners could be left in jeopardy. The U.S. Congress is also considering several bills to prohibit the use of federal funds for municipal projects that use eminent domain for private development.*****

Good luck and godspeed, IJ. You inspire all of us with your tireless dedication to this cause.

Like she was in finding out that the organization she directs had it's corporate license suspended by the state of California, Ilena Rosenthal is quite a bit late here, both in regards to the Lost Liberty Hotel Project _AND_ the eminent domain abuse issue overall.

The Liberty Blog was one of the first to report on the Lost Liberty Hotel project. On Tuesday, June 28, the same day the project was announced via press release (and several days after a number of us had been saying that private-to-private eminent domain actions should be initiated against the majority in Kelo), the Liberty Blog had an article on that interesting project.

That article included the link that Ms. Rosenthal includes here, more than three weeks later.

Ms. Rosenthal has never been a defender of private property rights, and has, in fact, attacked those who have stood foursquare in defense of the rights of individuals to hold and enjoy their private property.

In contrast, I've been working on private property rights issues for over a decade now, and have been working to specifically raise awareness of the eminent domain abuse issue for the last three years.

My blog doesn't need your "spice", Ms. Rosenthal, thank you very much. Especially given the fact that the ingredient you have added was put into the mix nearly a month ago, it is a true case of "too many cooks" possibly spoiling the soup.

I looked at your 'complete profile' Andy ... and didn't see on your 'resume' there that you are a paid corporate lobbyist as well as that you sell your services as a 'sound science' (junk or industry science)purveyor.

How honest is that?

You wouldn't want to fool your readers that this is all volunteer too would you????

A) Some people don't feel the need to chime in, especially when...B) You post redundant things; andC) You post things that have nothing to do with the subject at hand?

"Andy selling the BushWar ... ever on corporate salary."

(snip of the URL) Which has what, in particular, to do with either the Kelo case, you post of something that I posted to the blog more than three weeks ago, your lack of response to anything that I've said here, or my statement that you consider yourself the center of the universe?

"I looked at your 'complete profile' Andy ... and didn't see on your 'resume' there that you are a paid corporate lobbyist..."

I don't believe that anyone considers my profile on Blogspot to be anything approaching a "resume". I _DID_ say that I am in "government affairs", which to anyone who knows anything means "lobbyist". So, you're a liar to try and insinuate that I am hiding something.

Besides, Ms. Rosenthal: you were the manager of a California corporation (a non-profit one, to be sure, but most definitely a corporation). And, in fact, you _LOBBIED_ various government entities as an officer of that corporation.

So, in point of fact, _YOU_ were a corporate lobbyist (of a corporate entity whose license has now been suspended by the state of California. Why _DID_ the state of California suspend your organization, Ms. Rosenthal?).

"... as well as that you sell your services as a 'sound science' (junk or industry science)purveyor."

I do? That's news to me. Perhaps you are referring to my entry as an expert in the Heritage Foundation's well-respected "Experts Guide" publication?

Well, I don't presume to speak for all of the other readers of the Liberty Blog, but I'm certain that they'd be just as astounded as I am at your leap of logic to equate a listing in the Experts Guide as an advertisement for selling one's opinion. This holds especially true for a number of my readers whom I know are listed in there as well.

Incidentally, Ms. Rosenthal... just what reputable organization considers _YOU_ to be an expert in _ANYTHING_? I'd offer the FDA (if you can consider the FDA to be a reputable organization, again something a number of the Liberty Blog's readers would question), but then again, The Humantics Foundation was _DE-LISTED_ as a resource _BECAUSE OF ITS REPUTATION_!!!!

"How honest is that?"

A lot more honest than someone who tried to pass herself off as a defender of individual rights when she has, in fact, spent a great deal of her life running roughshod over the rights of others.

"You wouldn't want to fool your readers that this is all volunteer too would you????"

Well, up until recently I would have said that between the two of us, _YOU_ are the one who is posting in her professional capacity. But then your organization got it's license suspended by the state of California (and just _WHY_ did California do that, Ms. Rosenberg?). So now you no longer have a legitimate organization to be the mouthpiece for.

But just like everyone else who reads this blog knowing what "government affairs" means, they also know that I'm writing this blog on my own.

Ms. Rosenthal, I've said in the past that between the two of us, you're the only one that writes on the internet in your professional capacity. But considering that your organization's license was suspended by the state of California (what information did they want, and just why _DID_ you fail to provide that information?), you are now no longer acting as a professional mouthpiece.

Now you're just a private citizen, like me.

As anyone can see, the Liberty Blog is my own creation. I'm not using anyone's resources (except Blogspot's, of course).

In fact, it's an entire contrast with the website of the now-suspended Humantics Foundation for Women - a website which provided very little in the way of actual information of the sort that an organization that purported to be advocating for a certain population ought to. Instead, that website served as the personal platform for the organization's director to write all sorts of nastiness about those she perceived as her "enemies".

Speaking of which, Ms. Rosenthal - you're not going to make many friends or allies on the Liberty Blog when you start insulting lobbyists (which is kind of self-loathing on your part, anyway, considering that you, yourself, have lobbied on behalf of your cause).

LOL ... Andy believes that it is an insult to be correctly identified as a Corporate Lobbyist ... how telling.

Must be why he refuses to admit it on his 'complete profile' ... and why he fails too to admit he is a bought and paid for 'expert' however dubious his scientific 'credentials' are ... for the corporate backed 'junk' or 'sound science' propaganda team.

For links:

www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/LangerVsIlena.htm#soundscience?

This would more appropriately have been labeled the "Lost Liberties Blaaag" as our freedoms fade away.

A) You're now repeating yourself... again. Your statements regarding my profile and your allegations that I am a "bought and paid for expert" have been answered, and you have been asked to buttress your claims with some evidence. You have now repeated your claims without the requested further explanation.

Let's just make that a little more clear: to date, despite spending inordinate amounts of time commenting on the Liberty Blog, Ilena Rosenthal has failed to substantiate just about _EVERY_ claim she has made regarding me.

B) You use the terms "flack" and "shill" to insult those engaged in advocacy and lobbying in DC (despite the fact that you, yourself, have both lobbied and advocated both within and without DC - sheer hypocrisy); and

C) You have spent years of your life professionally working to violate the liberties of others (bullying, threatening, advocating to keep others in bondage, etc). So your decrying the loss of rights elsewhere rings hollow.

There are those of us who _HAVE_ spent nearly their entire careers working devotedly to protecting the full bundle of individual rights. What's more, we've accomplished things in that regard.

Yeah, go to the website of Ilena Rosenthal's organization, which was suspended by the state of California for failure to file requested information (what _WAS_ that information, Ms. Rosentha, and _WHY_ didn't you file it?).

Be sure to ask her, when you come back, why her organization uses so much of its resources to personally attack the people Ms. Rosenthal has termed her "enemies", and why so little of the website is actually dedicated to providing useful information for the women it is supposed to represent?

I also find it mildly ironic, but tremendously telling, that you would admire a movie celebrating Che Guevara, who was, in reality, a brutal Stalinist thug (not too much unlike Saddam Hussein, in fact, another power-hungry tyrant who you would have seen kept in power). Of course, Che was much better looking than Hussein and died young, so there's a certain romantic mystique there.

But it's incredibly ironic that you would put on this "shuck and jive" show decrying lost liberties while praising a movie that romanticized an enemy of those self-same liberties (especially the right to hold and enjoy private property).

Now, wait a minute here, Ms. Rosenthal. If you want to compare credentials on advocating regarding science-based public policy, mine are more than a damned-sight better than yours. At least I've seen the inside of a university science lab in the last decade-and-a-half (and completed coursework therein). At least _I've_ spent time working with and learning from some of this nation's most respected scientists and public health professionals.

It's not my fault if you feel shut out because decisions like Daubert and legislation like the DQA were made and written to protect the public from spurious "health care advocates" (like you) with dubious credentials (at best).

You've got a lot of gall to question my credentials when you have ZERO to offer for yourself. Hell, you're not even a breast implantee.

I place a great deal more cachet in _THEIR_ opinions than yours. You have no knowledge, no experience, nothing to offer the debate except for your hatred and negativity.

If anyone else (not your sychophants Probert etc.) is reading your blaaaaaaaa g ... they can decide for themselves about who I am. I have met some new friends who have the same opinion of you as I do.

You hate me because you want people to believe your lie that you are some Volunteer White Knight of the Silicone Sisterhood ... far, far, from it.

www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/langervsilena.html

For but one of my published works:

www.mercola.com/2001/jun/6/breast_implants.htm

Breast Implants: America's Silent Epidemic

by Ilena Rosenthal

Daily my phone rings and my email overflows with urgent and painful calls from women just awakening from the ether of their breast implants. Although their first surgeries may have been decades ago, they are finally emerging from the web of deceit that their plastic surgeons and the silicone manufacturers have woven through the media for years in a brilliant, expensive public relations coup of enormous proportions.

Now reality has struck as they join scores of thousands of ill and disfigured women in learning the hidden truth - their cherished breast implants may cost them their insurance, their health, their beauty, their vitality, their families, their careers, and too often, even their lives.

Yeah, that's another unverifiable claim about herself that she's made - that she was some instrumental part of a shelter for women-in-need. I put that claim in the same category as Ms. Rosenthal's claims to be at events advocating for breast implantees, when, in fact, she was hawking kettlecorn.

And that's not an exagerration, but true statement of fact.

As for your single article - an article that you've been posting and copying and posting and copying and largely cruising on since you wrote and originally published it oh-so-many years ago, that says little about your credentials, or the reliance that anyone can place thereon.

But you really don't want to get into a spitting match about credentials, do you?

No, because that would take away from your current tactic of trying to desperately spin attention away from the deficiencies in your record, your resume, and your statements made here.

We've seen who are YOUR heroes ... I pray to God that God's Majestic Earth can survive them.

www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/AEI-PNAC.htm

http://www.motorcyclediariesmovie.com/motorcycle-diaries-review.htm

The Motorcycle Diaries award nominees have reached an outstanding number. With the Motorcycle Diaries award nominees being in such categories as "Best Picture" in the British Academy Awards, "Best Foreign Language Film" in the Golden Globes, and "Best Foreign Film" by the National Board of Review, it is no wonder why the film is a fascination among many.

10:00 PM

Ilena Rose said... AndySpeak:*"Ernesto "Che" Guevara was no hero."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara

Excerpt:

Some believe that Guevara, called "the most complete human being of our age" by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, may yet prove to be the most important thinker and activist in Latin America since Simón Bolívar, leader of the South American independence movement and hero to subsequent generations of nationalists throughout Latin America.

About Me

For me, it's always been about protecting rights. Probably because my parents spent so much time taking us to places where the rights of Man were fought so long and hard for.
I was going to fight the Soviet Bear, until it up and decided to collapse on its own weight one year. My career took a turn, and all of those lessons my parents taught me about environmental science, public health, and policy coalesced when I became the reader for a blind lawyer.
I spend my days dealing with regulation, which is more fun than it sounds. I'm an activist, and deeply involved in politics (at both the national and local levels).
And I'm passionate about all I do.